The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collaboration between several telecommunications standard development organizations (including ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC), which are collectively known as the Organizational Partners. The 3GPP was initially formed to provide a globally applicable third-generation (3G) mobile phone system specification, based on the evolved Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) specifications, within the scope of the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 project of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The project covers cellular telecommunications network technologies, including radio access, the core transport network, and service capabilities—including work on codecs, security, quality of service—and thus provides complete system specifications. The specifications also provide hooks for non-radio access to the core network, and for interworking with Wi-Fi networks. The project scope also includes the development and maintenance of GSM and related 2G and 2.5G standards (including GPRS and EDGE), UMTS and related 3G standards (including HSPA), LTE and related 4G standards, and an evolved IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). 3GPP standardization encompasses Radio, Core Network and Service architecture.
Multi-operator core network (MOCN) and the Gateway core network (GWCN) described in the 3GPP standards allow sharing of the eNodeB (E-UTRAN) by multiple operators using their own core network equipment, and the GWCN allows for Mobility Management Entity (MME) sharing as well.
The foregoing systems and standards, however, fail to provide for the sharing of core network (CN) equipment and eNodeB equipment between multiple service providers, which imposes a high level of infrastructure costs and longer time to market for development and deployment of new systems, and also leads to increased complexity and resource usage by multiple networks each deploying independent CN, eNodeB and gNodeB equipment.
What is needed, therefore, are approaches for sharing of common core network (CN) eNodeB and gNodeB equipment to reduce service provider network deployment time and costs and reduce overall complexity and resource usage amongst multiple networks in wireless mobile communications networks (e.g., 3G, 4G and 5G networks).